[Closed] Is zero unemployment possible?

Sounds good to me. Free fags, booze and heroin. We could get rid of half the police force then too.

no

a capitalist society needs an underclass to survive.

so to keep competition within the market place there needs to be unemployment

Both Stalin and Hitler managed zero unemployment when they were running their respective countries. There were of course a few other faults with their systems but that asect worked fine, so yes it is possible.

It'll never happen in this country. Too many people who do not want to work.

The trouble with your Citizen's Wage proposal is that inflation and the cost of living will rise to match it.
By the same principal giving everyone in the country a million quid wouldn't mean we could all live in luxury.

Easiest way to zero unemployment is the death penalty for those without jobs. But some lefty do-gooders are squeamish about this 😉

It'll never happen in this country. Too many people who do not want to work.

Very true the bleeding hearts amongst us won’t let it happen and the ****less know it

Both Stalin and Hitler managed zero unemployment when they were running their respective countries

you can in a communist society.

possible? yes - see stalin etc.

likely? / practical? - no.

i like the idea of a citizens wage, £80/week for everyone, it sounds nice.

but i haven't really thought it through, i will sit back and let wiser people than i explain why it's a crap idea.

Positive and negative income tax is the easist way to ensure everyone gets a basic amount of money to cover their needs.

Very true the bleeding hearts amongst us won’t let it happen and the ****less know it

Full of Christmas cheer and goodwill to all men I see. 😀

andy7t2 has it.

For this society (liberal western capitalist/democracy),permanent full employment would be a disaster.

It depends who you ask and what other conditions you're willing to accept as a byproduct of "Full Employment".

If you ask Ernie, Junkyard or TJ, they'll say yes out of misguided socialist myopia 🙂 and ignore the fact that with full employment might come rabid inflation and in order to achieve full employment you'd need massive state intervention to the point of oppression. [i]q.v.[/i] Stalin, Hitler etc.

The Phillips Curve is at the heart of employment/prices arguments.
http://www.economicshelp.org/macroeconomics/unemployment/phillips-curve.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phillips_curve

SO the trade off of higher employment is needing to tolerate very high inflation - it also implies that you could use Keynesian policy to manage both. Right up TJs street! 🙂

In the other corner though, monetarists just held that there was a natural unemployment rate and you couldnt engineer away from it even at the cost of inflation.

Im on that side. 🙂

I've heard it all now.

In the other corner though, [s]monetarists[/s]Rich bar stewards who want to see the lower order fighting amongst themselves instead of fighting them for a crumb just held that there was a "natural" unemployment rate and you couldnt "engineer" away from it even at the cost of inflation.

There, fixed it for you. While full employment is pie in the sky, the more unemployed, the more "competition".

And onvce again stoner appears able to predict what I would say. Once again he is wrong, once again he shows he does not understand my stance

so did you leave your new-found Keynesian credentials at the door on the way into this thread TJ, or do you like to pick and choose conflicting economic theory?

Im sure you're well aware that your advocacy of expansion of the state sector in these difficult times is EXACTLY the theory behind the keynesian approach to full employment? Not Taxation.

Or will you flip-flop back next time the argument turns to the coalition governments cuts programme?

The Citizen's Income (CI) can, and in my opinion should, go further than £60/wk. Here's [url= http://www.citizensincome.org/resources/newsletter%20issue%203%202009.shtml#Mainarticle ]an article[/url] you may find interesting.

I first became aware of the CI in Germany. The proposed/discussed rate there is around €750/month.

I think before jumping in with a CI, they should tidy up the lower income taxation mess first.

Scrap credits, simplify benefits and raise the personal allowance to 10k.

CI at the equivalent of €750pm in the UK would have a pretty shocking effect on inflation in the short term that would do more harm than good to those on lower incomes IMO. Funny how the CI Trust dont make a single mention of inflation in their site, newsletter or introduction note.

Three Fish: that's an interesting (long) article. I have skimmed through it but am sorting my bike and will read properly later. However, on a quick skim I think it is more charitable than I was going to be! My idea is centred around not wasting money on people who just will not go to work and the costs associated with trying to make them go.

Would full employment destroy competition for jobs? Dunno, surely people would still want to better themselves or try something different?

Given that our two main political parties are commited to economic liberalism and that the third party will just do whatever they are told, then no, zero unemployment will never be possible as it is not a political goal that a UK govt. will ever strive towards.

From the little I remember of my A Level economics full employment is not possible or desireable, otherwise you can never have mobility in the labour market. As has been said before other have tried it but I don't fancy living under those conditions thanks!

But when the last unemployed person gets a job the last person at the dole office gets the sack, and so there is somebody unemployed again.

So they have to hire a new dole office clerk, the original guy gets his job back, but there is nothing to do because there are no longer any unemployed people.

And round it goes.

While we always have a quantity of people unemployed at any given time it doesn't mean that the same people are unemployed year in year out. As much as people like to imagine otherwise the number of people who have been unemployed for more than a year, as a proportion of all the people who are unemployed at any given time is pretty low. Stretch that to two years its very small indeed. So the bulk of out of work benefits are paid to people who are between jobs, not to people who don't work or don't want to work. And although the press can always find one when they want to, people who have never worked are very rare indeed.

However at the bottom of the wage scale are irregular, unsecure and seasonal jobs, so its not unusual for the people who do those kind of jobs to be in and out of work and on and off of benefits.

One thing our present government has been very naughty about is discussing out of work benefits and the overall cost of providing benefits in the same breath, as if they are one and the same thing. However out of work benefits are a very small part of the picture.

as someone who is currently unemployed, the money is crap. If you think about how many jobs are now advertised via the internet having a connection is more than helpful but it costs. I was thinking the other day how much a single first class stamp costs, you don't get to buy that many with a weeks benefits.

But i guess the crap money is meant to dissuade people from trying to live on benefits.

communism seems a good idea, unfortunately it does not take into account human nature

Correct me if I'm wrong (and this is on a slightly different tangent, I know), but in the recent boom, wasn't there potentially a job for everyone?

So, theoretically it's possible, but practically not so.

It's not rocket science, but make the benefits system so miserable for those that refuse to get a job, that they have no choice. It's been mooted as a nod towards that by the current Government, but it will never be implemented to such a degree that it actually works.

Failing that, send all the jobless to Wales.

I doubt zero unemployment is possible as there are to many who are not employable.

Correct me if I'm wrong (an this is on a slightly different tangent, I know), but in the recent boom, wasn't there potentially a job for everyone?

minor issues,

where people are and where jobs are, You can say move to the jobs, but if you look at housing costs in the southeast easier said than done. If you have no job, ie no money how do you raise money to move?

Skillset, there may be a job but are any of the unemployed skilled correctly? and if not who is going to train them? Employers would rather employ a skilled person than train an unskilled one.

There is always "beneath me" excuse that crops up regularly, There are people who will always try and evade working.

Thinking, what should be done in the UK is to pay a real jobseekers benefit for a defined period then cancel it. Most people are out of work for a few months so give a decent wage for that period so life can continue.

It was a bit of a trick question really, I don't think it's possible to get everyone into work. For a start, people might not live where the job is, nor have the skillset to do the work if they could get there.

My thought was that giving everyone, from the time they are born, a blanket £80 a week would save a load of money. Think of all those forms you have to fill in when you sign on, and the futile visits every two weeks where you have to prove you have been looking for work. Waste of everyone's time and money. I haven't yet worked out how I will deal with Housing Benefit when I am Queen.

So, despite what we are told by the government about how they will save all this money by targetting benefit thieves (pot and kettle), and what the redtops say, are there relatively few long term on-purpose unemployed?

The Phillips Curve is at the heart of employment/prices arguments.

No its not Stoner.

Of course it is possible - you could shoot everyone that doesnt have a job. Doubt you'd get ethical approval for that though.

One thing I do wonder about though is what kind of percentage of the population are actually working nowadays compared to say 20 years ago. I am thinking any comparison of unemployed numbers is massively skewed by the increased numbers at uni and gap years etc.

Crawley once had zero unemployment when it was growing fast. Obviously its good for council budgets but it stunted growth and companies struggled to employ staff, particularly skilled and 'employable' staff. Wages rise due to job seekers being in a strong position, good for the individual, but ultimately would increase inflation which is bad. Its also difficult for companies to retain staff without having to keep increasing wages.

I think the ideal situation is a low unemployment rate, which leaves a small pool of job seekers with a high turnover rate (i.e. job seekers find jobs relatively quickly)

The Phillips Curve and [i]its adaptations and variations*[/i] are at the heart of employment/prices arguments.

happier?

* We can do the classical curve, the new keynesian curve, the long run and short run curves, the inflation expectation adapted curve etc etc if you like.

The arguments around full employment and the risk/expectation/desire or otherwise that it will impact on prices has come from Phillips observations originally. I havent said that Phillips' curve is right, just that that is what people usually argue about.

are there relatively few long term on-purpose unemployed?

of course. Living on benefits is miserable for a short period, soul destroying for a long time. People who find that preferable to work and living wage are massively in the minority. We're all people who value our leisure time and would happily ride our bikes all day if we could, if life on benefits is that attractive why aren't we all doing it?

We're not doing it because living on benefits is paralysingly shit

I dunno . I've not been on here in , like 6 months , and now this .
I misunderstood the post .
On a personal level it's perfectly impossible .
All you need is parents that will give you money whenever you need it . Like when you just need a fiver for petrol , or to pay your Iphone bill .
Just ask our 20 yr old . He does it just fine .
Dagnabbit . I'd have gotten away with it if it wasnt for them pesky kids .

Look , make your minds up . Do you want capitalism , or socialism .
seasy.
I'm sure Hitler / Stalin got a mention earlier . That just about sums it up . well done .
My work here is done .

My work here is done.

You missed a bit.

Karinofnine - if you really want an answer, I'd strongly suggest you sit down and read one of the greatest social documentaries of the 20th Century:

http://www.george-orwell.org/The_Road_to_Wigan_Pier/index.html

Zulu - recommending Orwell 😯

Possible only if we can take the greed out of humanity.

Is zero unemployment possible?

as we are members of the EU the work force can expand beyond the local labour markets ability to create employment. In fact low UK unemployment will attract more EU nationals as jobs are arguably easy to find in such a senario.

so in answer to the original question is no it's not possible.

The point on options misses one key aspect of what's wrong with the curret benefits system. Work is an exchange time and effort for money, for those on benefits there is no exchange and hence there is no value given to those people's time. The hard part is creating a valid exchange of their time for benefit in a manner that assists the claimant and also the government (state, everybody) who provides the benefit money. The current system provides for a large number of people who will probably never enter "work" as most know it during their nominal "working lives". Tacklng this is a difficult and expensive issue (as every potential benefit to work convert is competing against the existing job market including non UK EU nationals). 13 years of labour saw a failure to tackle the underlying problem, can the the current incumbents sort it in <5 years?

there will always be the question of why pay a banker millions and a cleaner thousands per annum, which is the more valuable job?

Id recommend the Road to Wigan Pier too.

If only you were as widely read as the Zulu and I, eh TJ?

there will always be the question of why pay a banker millions and a cleaner thousands per annum, which is the more valuable job?

It ought to be a moot question.

If we could get to an equality of opportunity true bargaining would set the wage rate according to demand (for bankers and cleaners) and supply (of those jobs).

Churn will always create a level of unemployment - I seem to remember reading half a million in the UK.

As for giving everyone £80 regardless, I'm not sure. It could be cheaper than administering the benefits system, or it could result in unintended consequences. Either way, giving people on way above average incomes handouts would probably be political suicide.

Slums/shanty towns or whatever you want to call them have full employment.

Perhaps we should remove all benefits and public services.

Heh, it's better than Stalin/Hitler.

And no, I don't really think removing benefits is a good idea before you all start... Just indicating it's possible.

If we could get to an equality of opportunity true bargaining would set the wage rate according to demand (for bankers and cleaners) and supply (of those jobs).

which, sadly, i think will never be the reality. Those with money and power will always work to protect their position, why else do we tolerate a bunch of inbred germans? Although the alternative, president Blair......

Slums/shanty towns or whatever you want to call them have full employment.

knowing someone from Brazil, they said slums make you think, it is something you work to avoid at all costs.

Something you work to avoid? I don't understand. I'm interested in your friend's opinion - as a Geog teacher I teach about slums and the issues within them and first hand comments always help to illustrate the reality beyond the text book.

president Blair

*tinglyspine*

Gee, basically, she is not from a poor background is the first thing to understand, but she is certainly not rich.

The conversation began with a discussion of single mums and how you got single parents with large families in the UK, and she was saying that in Brazil there is no social security so you would have to bring the kids up and rely on family and what you could do to make ends meet. For someone from a reasonable financial background such as herself the sacrifices would be huge. ie total.

But the result of this is when she came to the UK she did whatever job she could to fund herself there was some support from her family but not alot. She was working as a care worker when i met her to pay for her degree, she had no social life it was just work and study, and she is now a qualified Accountant. There was never any intention of relying on others to help pay her way,

Some people are unemployable. Some jobs are un-doable (for long).

Some people are unemployable. Some jobs are un-doable (for long).

two questions, why are some people unemployable? because they don't want to work or because they are incapable through physical or mental incapacity to do so.

and un-doable jobs, why, because you find them unstimulating?

Remember the shocking fact that 50% of people are of below average intelligence. you don't need to be clever to sweep streets, you need good co-ordination to be a surgeon. etc.

you might not need to be intelligent but you do need a work ethic. A respect for your job and colleagues. Some people really just dont have that. In fact I should think most street sweepers have very good work ethics and personal skills making them more employable than others at the bottom of a theoretical pile.

Some people (that I know) have such deep seated character flaws that they always get fired form their jobs. Either they can't cope with it or their employers can't cope with them. They are intelligent and want to work, but just can't make it work out.

Un-doable jobs are ones that exploit and abuse people so much that anyone who can leave does.

Stoner - Member

If you ask Ernie, Junkyard or TJ, they'll say yes out of misguided socialist myopia and ignore the fact that with full employment might come rabid inflation and in order to achieve full employment you'd need massive state intervention to the point of oppression. q.v. Stalin, Hitler etc.

😀 LOL ! This place is [i]sooooh[/i] predictable !

Stalin and Hitler eh ? The two "20th Century Monsters" well that must mean that [i]full employment[/i] is the work of the Devil.....it is indisputably evil ! Long live unemployment ! 😀

Of course no one mentions the name of the 1st Earl of Stockton and former Conservative Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, (AKA the Council House Builder) despite the fact that we are talking about full employment in the UK. Well it wouldn't do to talk of Stalin, Hitler, and Macmillan, now would it ?

Note also that only Stalin's name is ever used when describing full employment in the Soviet Union. Because whilst there was also full employment under Kruschev and Brezhnev, their names don't somehow quite conjure up the same level of "evilness" and therefore doesn't reinforce just how satanic full employment is.

And of course the small detail that Hitler didn't [i]actually[/i] achieve full employment, is very conveniently ignored. Under the Third Reich only Aryan men were counted as unemployed, Jews, Gypsies, women, etc, were not counted as they had no right to work.

Under Hitler the amount of people looking for work did fall (although there were still a third of a million when Germany went to war) but this was in part because the unemployed were put to work on construction projects for which they received no wages - just food, a place in a work camp, and a little pocket money. So not actually [i]employment[/i] as we know it then.

Hitler also drafted over one and a half million into the armed forces. So if we are going to use that criteria, then we also need to include Winston Churchill as someone who achieved [i]full employment[/i]. Specially as again, it's more applicable to Britain. So maybe Hitler, Stalin and Churchill ? Or does that also rob full employment of its "satanic" connotations ?

But of course as we all know from Thatcher and Stoner, [i]inflation[/i] is the greatest evil known to man.
Why ? ....... because it robs the idle rich of their unearned accumulative wealth ! And what causes inflation ? Well we all know that it's caused by ordinary working people having too much money to spend. It has nothing at all to do with money-grabbing profiteers pushing prices up !

And as Stoner so correctly identifies, what better way to stop ordinary working people having too much money to spend than to have high levels of unemployment. Unemployment keeps ordinary working people disciplined, and in the knowledge that they should be grateful for the little that they have. It is not for them to be greedy, [i]that[/i] is a special right and privilege which is uniquely reserved for the wealthy.

Of course when the greed driven incompetence of the wealthy few eventually causes the shit to hit the fan, then ordinary working people will come to their rescue by tightening their belts even further, and of course accepting even higher levels of unemployment. Well you wouldn't want the wealthy and privileged to do that now would you, I mean, it's against "human nature" is it not ?

Besides, the wealthy and privileged of course control broadcasting, education, newspapers, etc, and can therefore do an excellent job of convincing most ordinary people, from cradle to grave, that it's all their fault.

.

trailmonkey - Member

Given that our two main political parties are commited to economic liberalism and that the third party will just do whatever they are told, then no, zero unemployment will never be possible as it is not a political goal that a UK govt. will ever strive towards.

You're right trailmonkey, full employment is not a political goal which UK governments any longer strive for, but only because they have convinced most ordinary people of TINA. Quite an impressive achievement and not least, because of economic liberalism's catastrophic failures in recent times.

This wasn't of course always the case. Thatcher won the 1979 general election on a promise of abolishing mass unemployment. In fact, it was the central pillar of her entire election campaign. This being the election poster which was predominately used throughout the entire campaign :

[img] [/img]

Unemployment was "only" one and a half million during that election, but Thatcher only ever managed to push it up even further after she took power. She managed to get away with it for two reasons. Firstly, she convinced many people that it wasn't her fault, in exactly the same way as the present Tory government is doing so today.

And secondly, even with over 3 million unemployed it still means that the overwhelming majority of the electorate are employed. This leaves many people under the completely mistaken belief that unemployment doesn't affect them - it always does, whether it's because of lower wages, higher taxes, etc. In fact many people who still have jobs feel "lucky".........which is of course very good news for any government.

Im too employed to read all that 🙂

LOL ! This place is sooooh predictable !

Happy to oblige 😉

A fine piece of work there ernie.

[img] [/img]